Read­ing sack boss Cle­ment

PAUL Cle­ment has been sacked by Sky Bet Cham­pi­onship side Read­ing after less than nine months in charge.

The Roy­als are out­side the drop zone only on goal dif­fer­ence after win­ning just four of their 20 League games this sea­son.

“Read­ing can an­nounce that Paul Cle­ment has left his po­si­tion as man­ager of the club with im­me­di­ate ef­fect,” read a club state­ment re­leased yes­ter­day.

“Cle­ment was ap­pointed to­wards the end of March and earned two vic­to­ries and a fi­nal­day draw in Cardiff, which proved enough to se­cure the club its Cham­pi­onship sta­tus at the end of a chal­leng­ing 2017-18.

“How­ever, fol­low­ing five wins in the first 22 League and cup matches of 2018-19, own­ers Mr Yongge Dai and Ms Xiu Li Dai have made the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion that the time is now right to make a change.”

Former Derby and Swansea man­ager Cle­ment, 46, signed a three-year deal when he re­placed Jaap Stam in March.

Read­ing added: “CEO Nigel Howe will now seek to swiftly iden­tify and ap­point a new man­ager who will fit the Read­ing mould, build a team which can de­liver per­for­mances and re­sults that will help us climb the Cham­pi­onship ta­ble and lead the club to­wards pro­mo­tion in the fu­ture.”

Cle­ment, a former coach at Chelsea, Paris St Ger­main, Real Madrid and Bay­ern Mu­nich, has now lost two jobs in­side 12 months.

He was sacked by Swansea in De­cem­ber 2017 hav­ing spent less than a year in charge of the Welsh club.